


Just Another Day in the Infirmary

by applecameron



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little I-don't-know-what, set after a some kind of mission gone bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Day in the Infirmary

"Just Another Day in the Infirmary"  
by Apple Cameron. October 2003.

You know it's a concussion when 10 minutes after he begins speaking, Daniel Jackson starts all over with the exact same words. Rather amazing, really.

Herding him onto the gurney wasn't impossible, but the man kept twisting around as he was moved, determined to not lose sight of Colonel O'Neill. Nor did he stop talking at any time, on the same 10 minute loop like some kind of whacked-out tape recorder. Teal'c had Sam under his arm and was not letting her go. Janet let that slide, it didn't matter, so long as all the little children followed her own doctorly Pied Piperness down to Wonderland where plasma and sutures and MRIs waited for everyone. One of her orderlies kept pace on the Sam side of Teal'c, just in case the big guy's symbiote wasn't up to snuff. She trotted on, keeping pace with the two gurneys.

Keeping him in the bed once they got there? Now, _that_ was working up to impossible.

Jack was stabilized, the rib hadn't pierced his lung, but someone had worked him over with serious style, and then dumped him in a forest, according to Teal'c and the stoned tape recorder formerly known as Dr. Jackson.

Daniel just kept babbling, switching from the first loop to a different one after he'd been trundled back out of the CAT himself. "Is Jack all right? He was so still when we found him." It went on in that vein for about 90 seconds, then started over.

Janet stood by Dr. Jackson's bed, his hand in hers, through two whole loops, nodding.

"Is he OK? Is he OK?" She nodded. "Is Jack all right?"

"Jack is all right. You did a good job with that travois, the rib stayed out of his lung. Everybody's safe, Daniel."

Daniel seemed to see her after she paced him, answering the same through two more loops. He blinked and real awareness looked at her, blue eyes suddenly sharp as tacks. "He's going to be all right? Am I babbling? Have I been babbling all this time?" The sharpness faded. "I'm babbling, aren't I?" Oh, the joys of concussion.

"Shhhhh. Everyone is all right."

He did sleep, eventually, the pulse of the infirmary winding down as night crept on, circadian rhythms responding to a passage of the sun no one could even see from deep underground.

The infirmary lighting was never kind, but a warm glow tinted off Daniel's hair, his face cushioned on an arm, uncomfortably hunched over Jack's bed. He was still, one hand over Jack's, lightly, avoiding the tubes that sprouted from the man's hand like bizarre rhizomes from a plant.

Janet rubbed her eyes, tired, elbows on her desk.

Sam was in the next bed, in partial traction to keep her shoulder immobile, sleeping the sleep of the righteous and lightly sedated. Teal'c was seated bolt upright by her side, kel-no-reeming away and guarding everyone's dreams.

Jack O'Neill stirred and Daniel moved in response.

She could see it from here, the unselfconscious emotion that Daniel Jackson gave, gave every day, to everyone, thank God and little fishes, none of that military dispassionate bullshit that O'Neill would try to hide behind. Daniel walked right past your emotional defenses like they weren't even _there_. He pressed his cheek to Jack's hand and it moved to cup his jaw a moment, then crept up into his hair and stayed there, like a benediction.

O'Neill's lips moved in something that looked like 'hi, Danny' and Janet could see Teal'c open one eye from his post, then resume his kel-no-reem and somehow radiate intense satisfaction at the same time.

"I'm sorry, Jack. They lied to us." Janet could barely hear Daniel Jackson's voice, muffled and low.

"So I gathered." That was more lip-reading.

"You just _disappeared_ , Jack, none of us knew where you were. And Chancellor Oreg wouldn't say _anything_. And then the Jaffa from Thoth showed up and the gate was surrounded and we harried the palace for two days and you weren't even _in_ it. Jesus, Jack, we found you by mistake. By _mistake_."

Jack's hand just moved, stroking Daniel's hair like petting a cat, only more so, soothing them both. _Human kel-no-reem_ , a healing trance of the soul. "I know, I know. It's OK. Shhhh."

Daniel sat up and wiped his face, then leaned over with the most tender movement she'd ever seen -- the man was scarily, breathtakingly human -- and brushed away a thin trail of liquid from Jack's face. "I was really scared we'd lost you, Jack."

"I know."

Thank God and little fishes.

Janet looked back down at her report and blinked twice, then twice again, making sure there was no suspicious wetness in _her_ eyes, before she stood and made her way to her patients.


End file.
